Electron, lightest stable subatomic particle known. It carries a negative charge, which is considered the basic unit of electric charge. The rest mass of the electron is 9.10938356 × 10−31kg, which is only 1/1,836the mass of a proton. An electron is therefore considered nearly massless in comparison with a proton or a neutron, and the electron mass is not included in calculating the mass number of an atom.

Description of the arrangement of electrons in atoms of various elements.

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The electron was discovered in 1897 by the English physicist J.J. Thomson during investigations of cathode rays. His discovery of electrons, which he initially called corpuscles, played a pivotal role in revolutionizing knowledge of atomic structure. Under ordinary conditions electrons are bound to the positively charged nuclei of atoms by the attraction between opposite electric charges. In a neutral atom the number of electrons is identical to the number of positive charges on the nucleus. Any atom, however, may have more or fewer electrons than positive charges and thus be negatively or positively charged as a whole; these charged atoms are known as ions. Not all electrons are associated with atoms; some occur in a free state with ions in the form of matter known as plasma.

Within any given atom, electrons move about the nucleus in an orderly arrangement of orbitals, the attraction between electrons and nucleus overcoming repulsion among the electrons that would otherwise cause them to fly apart. These orbitals are organized in concentric shells proceeding outward from the nucleus with an increasing number of subshells. The electrons in orbitals closest to the nucleus are held most tightly; those in the outermost orbitals are shielded by intervening electrons and are the most loosely held by the nucleus. As the electrons move about within this structure, they form a diffuse cloud of negative charge that occupies nearly the entire volume of the atom. The detailed structural arrangement of electrons within an atom is referred to as the electronic configuration of the atom. The electronic configuration determines not only the size of an individual atom but also the chemical nature of the atom. The classification of elements within groups of similar elements in the periodic table, for example, is based on the similarity in their electron structures.

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smallest unit into which matter can be divided without the release of electrically charged particles. It also is the smallest unit of matter that has the characteristic properties of a chemical element. As such, the atom is the basic building block of chemistry.

in radiation

In the first Born approximation, inelastic cross section depends only on velocity and the magnitude of the charge on the incident particle. Hence, an electron and a positron at the same velocity should have identical stopping powers, which should be the same as that of a proton at that velocity. In practice, there is some difference in the case of an electron because of the indistinguishability...

...than the speed of light. Some of these were identified initially by their particulate nature and only later were shown to travel with wavelike character. One example of this kind of radiation is the electron, first established as a negatively charged particle in 1897 by the English physicist Joseph John Thomson and later as the component of beta rays emitted by radioactive elements. The electron...